Finalised Idea for Project

We have decided to go with Louis idea, as I think that it perfectly portrays the uncanny and he has a very visual idea of what he wants to do and it is very achievable and within our means.

Here is his proposal, linked here. He says that he has taken inspiration from films such as Eraserhead, which I can see has heavily influenced his idea and I would love to also try and recreate some of the shot types. As we have no sound, the acting and script will be everything. Conveying the plot through effects and both visual and in post.

I personally think that black and white in editing would be quite a nice touch with maybe some splashes of colour but I will speak to my team members about it. I think that the set of Eraserhead is something that will also be quite a large inspiration on the feel of our set.

The barren empty spaces with only one or two things in the frame means that your eyes are  drawn instinctively to what is in the space, which is something that many filmmakers employ to make sure that the audiences eye is directed at a specific part of the frame so that they do not miss part of the story. Also however, the fact that the space is empty yet filled with a black sort of effect means that the frame and set feels bigger to the audience that what it probably is. This is advantageous as it means that the audience garners the idea that the world exists beyond the walls of the set and lends more realism to the scene.

 

I will be looking into more inspirations in depth as the time comes closer to build our set. I like to have a lot of visual references from films I have seen or the internet so I know what I am working towards, thankfully there are plenty of inspirations out there that will help me when it comes to building the set and the placement of objects and the build of the room.

 

References

 

 Eraserhead, 1977. Film. Dir. David Lynch. American Film Institute, USA.

Workshop Introduction

Today in class we were shown how to operate hand and power tools so that we could use them in the set making process to create wooden set slats and stage slats. Although I have a limited knowledge already of how to use hand tools from secondary school it was not only a refresher but also built upon my knowledge by teaching me some simple things such as triangulation that would help me in the long run with set building. Using the jigsaw and power drill and learning about the health and safety of such items was a valuable workshop.

We also had a first look at the materials that would be able to be used during our design of set. Thankfully there is a baby already available, and we are going to be using a stuffed deers head on top of that to create the illusion of uncanny in our piece that Louis has scripted. Also we found some wallpaper that we can customise that would be perfect for our scene, and we also have located some flooring to use although that is at one of our crews houses and they will be bringing it in next week for when we start to build our set.

I think now I have a much more realistic expectation of what to expect when building a set, and this means that I will be able to do tasks more efficiently and also help if a colleague or someone else needs help with their tasks.

Mood Board and Swatches 2

Here is my second mood board for our project. Although I am not very skilled with the features of photoshop I have put together swatches and some images into a second mood board, of colours and inspirations for the short. I got the swatches from a really handy website, where you just search for the genre of the colour swatches that you would like (www.colorhunter.com) and it is an amazing resource for colour swatches and palettes that give inspiration for mood boards and film cinematography.

I think that we will be able to use the colours in this mood board as wallpaper inspiration, which will be handy when it actually comes to choosing the wallpaper for our piece.

Mood Board 1 - Textures

This is my first mood board for the idea that we have chosen- which is Louis idea. We have decided that the room is very distressed, including the wallpaper and even the tiling of the floor. We are hoping to get faux linoleum so that when we have the scene of blood dropping onto the floor, it becomes a splattered effect rather than just seeping into a material such as carpet. 

A distressed wallpaper idea is something that Louis conveyed in his proposal and we are happy to run with it, it will give the room an uncanny theme and fit the brief. It will also visually make the scene look more fitting, and will be fun to learn how to do with normal wallpaper and perhaps paint.

I plan to do a second mood board on colours and objects that we could have in the room that will compliment the mood board above. A good idea for looking at textures is to go on wallpaper and fabric websites and look at swatches in general. That way it gives a better idea of what colours, textures and materials you want to be using in the scenes and also gives you something to look for when you are actually browsing for materials for the shoot.

Mood Board Photoshop Session

We had our first session today in Photoshop for our mood boards. Although my group was absent for this session I was advised to carry on with my own mood board for the proposal that I had drafted onto my blog in the previous post.

I've gone with a textures and colours mood board along with a horror/shadow mood board to juxtapose the horror with the textures and the colour white, which I have decided is my main colour for the mood board and for my proposal. 

I will include some hospital theme into the mood board also, as the clothes that the patients wear is very relevant to the mood and also to the theme of my proposal itself. I will be doing some research into doppelgänger and shadows. 

Of course I haven't heard the rest of my groups proposals so at the moment I can only base it on my own proposal, and therefore this may change as my group comes up with ideas.

Draft proposal for CPR

The room is derelict. There are no visible windows in the frames, and there appears to be no natural light in the entire room. It has a clinical look, the walls are white but the paint is peeling, looks distressed and torn like the room has contained something. The space is quite bare but the light is artificial and bright everywhere that the protagonist turns, so that the room feels bigger, emptier than it is.

It is obvious that the camera is the protagonist as a pan down reveals feet. There should be the conveyed emotion of confusion here, the hands rise in front into the camera view. They are clean. Then they are dirty, bloody, distorted. 

The protagonist is shocked. They are breathing heavily, and this is noticeable not through sound but by a pan down to the chest area. The hands turn over before falling out of the frame.

It is then that the protagonist notices a mirror in the room. There is a sense of trepidation- does the protagonist want to see the reflection when they have just seen dirty, bloodied hands? They approach with caution, before finally reaching out- a dirty and bloodied hand towards the mirror, which is reflected back distorted and inhuman, before the face appears in the reflection.

They are normal looking. Then they are bloodied, dirty and terrifyingly distorted as if they are not fully human. They reach a hand to their face, which is clean but in the mirror is not. It is surreal, and unable to work out whether the image in the mirror is real or not, they abruptly punch and break the glass. Wind blows abruptly from the shattered pieces, as the reflection in the now broken glass screams.